


From Life

by skyshores



Category: Majo no Takkyuubin | Kiki's Delivery Service
Genre: Female Friendship, Food Porn, Gen, Magic, Misses Clause Challenge, Post-Film, Slice of Life, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:24:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyshores/pseuds/skyshores
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ursula celebrates the holiday season downtown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elviella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elviella/gifts).



In the lilac light of evenfall, past the snowy hills and amongst the birches, Ursula was still conducting studies of deer for the holiday watercolours she would mail to her parents. Last year she was gutsy and did a portrait of a bear and her cub in hibernation from life. The year before that she had painted a rink full of skaters. Each time her parents had sent her own postcards back with praises and requests written in her mother’s ribbony, familiar cursive, and her father’s bold, capitalised print.

Deer had been a hotly requested subject this year. They were difficult to draw, mostly because of their diffidence; Ursula had never been able to get them to stay put for more than half a minute until Jiji had helped sweet-talk the doe and her herd into modelling for her.

“Be good, my lovely, I’m almost done,” she said to one stately fawn starting to fidget. Once Ursula was satisfied with her preliminary sketches, as promised, she lifted the lid from her basket of apples and fed the herd with her ungloved hands, laughing as she was licked warm. The tongues of the deer were just what her fingers needed after a numbing sketching session.

When the last apple was gone the deer said goodbye with their eyes and soundlessly evanesced into the wood, winterbound.

 

* * *

 

Ursula shook and stomped the snow from her hair and boots. Jiji and his tiny son were on the bed inspecting the tinking temari she had woven for them. Ursula got started on the watercolours she had been planning, lest she forget the variegated golds and pinks and purples of the snow and the neat shadows cast by the stark white trees and the knowing gleams in the deer’s eyes.

Within the hour the little witch came tumbling from the sky, all in black except for her big red bow flopping about in the wind.

“Was Jiji good while I was away?”

“As an angel.”

Kiki put her new broom by the hearth and hurried to Ursula’s side to see what she was working on. “It’s a very beautiful picture,” she said. “I love the colours. How did you even mix those ones to get these?”

“Magic! Ehehehe.” Ursula dipped her brush in water and watched the mallow-coloured puff expand until it filled the cup. “See that? Looks like I’m mixing a potion, doesn’t it?”

Kiki nodded. Her smile brought out her dimples and accentuated her rosy cheeks. “Speaking of magic, I learned a new spell this morning. My mother sent me a letter with the instructions and said I had to try to cast it at least once in my life. Could I try it here, maybe?”

“’Course! Let’s see what you can do.”

“It may not work,” warned Kiki sheepishly. “I’m not much good at anything other than flying.”

“Well, most things come as a result of effort rather than talent. You won’t know until you try.”

Kiki nodded and tensed her brows in concentration. “Okay then, I’ll start.”

First, she took a deep breath. Then she exhaled a great big globe of white mist. Inside the growing haze, blue reindeer cantered, Santa pulled his sleigh, skaters did pirouettes, and small children advanced towards a wonderland of candy canes and ribbons and toys. Ursula thought the dancing images were the spell, but it wasn’t all. As soon as Kiki’s animations finished, the vapour crystallised into seeds of glitter that languidly bloomed into crisp tapestries of frost about the size of Ursula’s palm.

Kiki inhaled again. “Oh, Ursula, I did it!”

“Wow.” Ursula had to blink herself into belief. “That’s really something!”

“You think so?”

“Of course! That there was a work of art. How’d you do something like that?” But Ursula retracted her question. “Then again, there’s no sense in penguins asking hawks how they fly.”

“Hmmm. Well, my mum told me it’s like this, see: it turns out that witches can talk to water, too. We can’t carry conversations with it, but sometimes we can convince it to do little jobs for us.” Kiki unsnagged a snowflake from Ursula’s ponytail. “These won’t melt until spring.”

An oil painting lingered on Ursula’s mind as Kiki cast the spell again and again, each time with new embellishments and nuances, until she said her head hurt and asked to take her leave.

Before Kiki took flight the two girls stood outside Ursula’s cabin and admired all the lights and decorations Ursula had put up.

“Pretty,” Kiki said. “It’s a shame that not many people will see them.”

“The crows do. Even if they didn’t, I like them because they’re festive _and_ let me feel as if I’m living in a fairy castle. And during the season a few of my friends visit me from time to time. You got to see the lights, didn’t you?”

“You’re right,” Kiki laughed. “But, even if people visit you on occasion… doesn’t it ever get lonely out here?”

“I can’t say it never does, but I appreciate the quiet more often than not. Besides, it’s sometimes lonelier around people than by yourself.”

“That’s true.”

“And if the loneliness ever gets to be too much, I go downtown to talk to old friends, or make new ones,” Ursula said. “So I guess the short answer is ‘yes’.

Kiki tapped her chin. “In that case, why don’t you come to Osono’s for Yuletide? There’ll be lots of yummy food! And presents.”

“Well, I’d be missing out if I didn’t go, wouldn’t I?” said Ursula, hands on her hips. “Though I should warn you that I eat more than you think.”

“That’s all right! Gives us an excuse to cook more.” Kiki mounted her broom. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay. Come down and model for me again sometime soon, eh? You too, Jiji!”

The witch took off, her black overcoat too heavy to billow around her waist, and rose higher and higher until she was out of sight.

Alone, Ursula dug out her old sketches of Kiki’s dewy doe-eyed face and spent the rest of the night painting delicate traceries of snow and ice.

 

* * *

 

On the peak of morning on the scheduled day, Ursula stuffed her knapsack full of goodies and rode one of Ghibli’s ubiquitous double-deckers to town, immersed in the kaleidoscopic revelry that flashed below the all roofs and warm amber lamplights blanketed by snow. As she disembarked the bus and made her way afoot, she still got quite lost in the narrow, labyrinthine streets of Kokoriko, making two inadvertent detours before she found the bakery with a window that read “Gutiokipanja” in blackletter.

“Hey. Happy holidays,” said Ursula to Osono and Fukuo. “How’s business? I bet yesterday was a whirlwind.”

“Was it ever!” Osono said. “But Kiki had it harder than us. Poor girl’s in her room, probably collapsed on her bed.”

“Can I go and visit her?”

“Go ahead.” Osono winked and Fukuo grinned. “We needed a little time to prepare a surprise for her. It’d be wonderful if you could keep her occupied until I give you this signal.” Osono pushed a thumb up.

“Gotcha.” Ursula winked back and climbed up the steps to Kiki’s attic. As forewarned the witch was slumped over her bed, arms outstretched, like a fallen volant bird. Jiji and his four children were each a ball curled up against her ribs. “Heya, gorgeous!”

“Ursulaaaa, I’m gonna die! My butt hurts from flying around all day yesterday.”

“That tough, huh?”

“Worse! The day before, there was this customer with a weird moustache. Like this!” Kiki articulated to explain just how curly it was. “He wanted me to deliver a really heavy package all the way over the Adriatic Sea to this girl named Fio Piccolo. My Italian is awful, but Fio was cool and redheaded and very patient with me. She reminded me a little bit of you. And the money was too good to refuse. Otherwise the order was _ridiculous_! Why not go to a local shipping service? I swear something weird was up with that guy.”

“I’ll say—”

“Plus! I knew a bit about Santa Claus before I moved here, but I didn’t think children actually believed in him! I got hundreds, _hundreds_ , of requests to pretend to be Santa Claus and go down chimneys and deliver gifts for them.”

“Well, you’re the closest thing we’ve got to Santa Claus.”

“He’s known as Father Christmas around these parts, right?” Kiki asked, shifting in her bed to sit. “We don’t celebrate Christmas where I come from.”

Ursula leaned against the windowsill and intermittently searched for Osono’s signal. “I see.”

“My witch ancestors celebrated a thing called Yuletide, which happens around Christmastime, the winter solstice being important to us and all. We burn logs and sing carols and feast and give gifts. The traditions have been carried down over the years from mother to daughter, even if only some of us still believe in the gods it’s supposed to honour.”

“You miss it?”

Kiki nodded. “I even got a little nostalgic and made a Yule goat to put under the Christmas tree. It’s only a little one, but it reminds me of home.”

Ursula turned to the window and spotted Osono’s thumbs-up signal. “Can I see it?”

“Sure!” Kiki bounced off her bed, rubbing her bottom as she lead the way to the dining room.

The entire setup was gorgeous. Bejewelled baubles and gilded angels and silver tinsel decorated the fir that sheltered a ring of gifts sitting at the centre of the room. Beside the cluster the tiny straw Yule goat was standing, wrapped in a red ribbon.

Traditional Yuletide treats and Christmas classics reworked decked every flat service in the room: Bethmännchen; storytelling springerle; tacky knäck; black forests covered in santa-shaped persipans and marzipans; gingerbread bells; glazed berliners; braided stollen; sugared strudels; and honey-fragrant anise tuiles. The whole house was redolent of butter and sugar and golden floury heaven.

“Wow,” Kiki gasped. “When did all this happen?”

“Surprise!” said Osono. “We spruced the place up a bit, since we wanted the baby and you to have a special first Christmas.”

Kiki leapt forth and wrapped her hands around Osono’s waist. “Oh, thank you, Osono! I love it. I’m sure he does, too,” she chirped, and tickled the child until his gurgling filled the room.

“Oh, it was no trouble at all,” Osono said, petting Kiki’s thick black hair. “Be sure you don’t forget to open your presents, too.”

Kiki nodded and crouched over the Christmas tree. With Osono’s permission Ursula munched on a macaron while watching.

From Osono and Fukuo, Kiki received the pretty pink rhinestone shoes she had been pining over since she’d first arrived in Koriko. The couple unwrapped their tenant’s present to find kites to aid their child’s first taste of flight.

Then Kiki went upstairs with Ursula to present her a small box. She shook the package before unwrapping it. Inside was a pair of thick, woolly stockings. They were ultramarine blue, covered in tiny white snow crystals, with little unicorns woven over the toes.

“You got me stockings! Sexy ones, too.”

“Yep! Now you can show off those fantastic legs and still keep warm in the freezing cold!”

“Uh huh. I’m gonna wear these every day. Heck, I’m gonna wear them right now!” Ursula shimmied out of her cotton trousers to her undies and wriggled into the stockings. Then she stood and sashayed about the room. “Ah, these feel great. They’re not itchy at all, either.”

Kiki beamed starrily and clapped her hands in delight. “They suit you!”

“Thanks, Kiki.” Ursula transported her big canvas of a gift from her hands to Kiki’s. “I’m sorry to say my present for you this year isn’t a dress.”

“It’s all right,” she sighed, slowly undoing the ribbon, “I still can’t wear anything other than black for half a year yet—Oh. Oh, Ursula, is it all right for me to have this? It’s such a wonderful—”

“I’m sorry if I come off as a little presumptuous to offer my own work as gift, but you seemed to like that painting. It wouldn’t be finished without you, after all.”

Kiki blushed and ran downstairs to fetch a nail and hammer. When she came back, she asked breathlessly, “Does it have a name yet?”

“The Ship Flying over the Rainbow.”

“What a pretty name… I’ll take time to admire it every day,” Kiki promised, and hammered the last strip of the nail into the wooden wall. “Oh, and, Osono and Fukuo said to come down and eat soon. The food that’s still warm won’t be for too long.”

Ursula gladly obliged and spent all lunch gorging on baked delights, even though she knew full well she’d return for dinner for a second helping of ham and soup and mumma and glogg and pudding. She and Kiki extolled the food and described it with adjectives like “delectable” and “impeccable”.

And after dinner she said, “Kiki. Would you do one last favour for me today?”

“Of course!”

She handed Kiki her watercolour postcard and parents’ address. “Deliver this to my parents? That’s the address. If you take the skyway, you’ll be home by dinner.”

“Oh, sure.” Kiki took the mail and inexplicably kept it secure in her—pocketed?—undershirt. “What does the house look like?”

“The house? Well, it’s yellow-roofed. It’s got a trim garden in front with a mermaid fountain at the centre. Just look for the one building overgrown with azaleas, if all else fails.”

“That doesn’t sound like the sort of place you would’ve grown up in...”

“Heheh, what would give ya that impression?”

“Well, you’re so attuned to the wilderness! It’s weird to think of you living anywhere else.”

“Ah, then I guess I adapt to my surroundings better than I thought.”

“Eh? So how’d you end up living here?”

“You really wanna know? The story isn’t very interesting.”

“Yes, please!”

Ursula scratched her head. “Well, uh, okay. So, um, a few years ago I’d just finished high school and was still staying with my folks. Even though they supported me I knew they disagreed with the path I’d chosen for myself.”

“As an artist?”

“As an artist,” Ursula echoed. “My parents, I love ‘em to death, but I didn’t want to rely on them forever, so I packed my bags and earned my keep while studying at art school.

“Then I found a boy and fell in love and spent weeks with him in that cabin my grandfather built in the woods. One day we realised we’d completely fizzled out, and that was that. I don’t miss him. But I was infatuated with the cabin and the forest by then, so I’ve been living there ever since.”

“Oh,” said Kiki. “That’s—”

“Something you might want to keep as a reference for the future,” Ursula suggested, “though Tombo seems much livelier than that guy… Yeah, he’s definitely more importunate—”

“Ursulaaaa!”

“I’m not sorry,” she snickered. “Well, now that you’ve heard my life story, it’s time to get a move on.” Ursula ushered Kiki forward, almost drowsy from telling such an long, humdrum tale. “Oh, and could you ask my parents what day I should visit them before New Year’s?”

“Will do.”

Kiki lifted her keels to the back of her broom and soared headlong into the air.

 

* * *

 

When Kiki returned, Ursula grabbed her mail and was so immersed in reading it that she only noticed Kiki was speaking when she put a hand on her shoulder. Ursula snapped out of her haze at once. “Huh? Wuh?”

“I _said_ , ‘Tombo invited me to go sled-racing this morning. Let’s go together, shall we?’”

“Uh, you betcha!” Ursula then gazed lovingly down at her own thighs, accentuating them with a pat of her palm. “I was looking for an excuse to parade these around town.”

 

* * *

 

When Ursula and Kiki left the bakery, Osono was reading to her baby whilst Fukuo had his huge arms wound around the both of them. As the friends wandered away from that warm, cosy scene, Kiki related to Ursula how embarrassed she had been when, that morning, under the mistletoe, she had kissed Tombo on a whim, after he’d joked that _that_ was all he’d wanted for Christmas. _Why had she done that_ , and _how would she look Tombo in the eye now_ , Kiki shrieked, and Ursula laughed and laughed and laughed.

Atop the golden snowy knolls Tombo was waiting and waving. Half of Kokoriko seemed to be at the races; young and old alike gathered and cheered around the sleds: the clocktower keeper, Tombo’s gang, and even the Madam and Bertha were all there. Before Ursula had finished counting the faces in the crowd Kiki and Tombo and already ridden the first sled down, screaming.

Later, as Ursula herself braved the white slope in her new favourite stockings, all thought vanished like snow on snow.

A blinding colourless rush flurried about Ursula. Suddenly she remembered being held as a little girl by her mother or father as she cried and plummeted down what had been to her a precipice. This time was different. Ursula’s heart was pealing like a sleighbell. As she rushed roaring down the hill, she knew at last what she would be painting for the folks back home the year after.

**Author's Note:**

> You too can grow your own [snowflakes](http://s3.amazonaws.com/scifri-videos/snowflakebottle-121010.mp4)! Happy holidays, Elviella. \o/


End file.
